Collectors: Rose Garden

The scene on the sidewalk was a pure Billy Rose spectacle. While cops hovered before the curved Georgian facade of his Manhattan town house, showmanship's shortest (5 ft. 3 in.) giant lounged in the cavity of Henry Moore's Reclining Figure, surrounded by Reg Butler's Woman Stretching, Maillol's Chained Liberty, Rodin's nude Adam and Archipenko's cubistic Woman Combing Hair. While Billy watched, twelve white-coated movers lifted the sculpture into vans. In all, there were 105 pieces conservatively worth $1,000,000, and they were off on their final journey to Jerusalem.

What in the world had prompted Billy Rose's handsome gesture? "About 200 of my friends see my collection in a year in my house," explained Billy. "Perhaps 20,000 people will see it on an average Sunday in Jerusalem. I decided to give it to Israel because it is hungrier for culture than any other country in the world." Rose has also made sure that his sculpture will have a spectacular setting: on an olive-studded hill in Jerusalem is the five-acre Billy Rose Art Garden, designed by Sculptor Isamu Noguchi and landscaped with 10,000 tons of earthen fill and contoured escarpment.

Rose confesses that he will miss his sculpture, which has sat niched away in closets, cellars and theaters. "Outside of the fact that you can't cuddle up to art," says he, "I get from it very much the same sort of joy that I get out of friendship with a beautiful girl." Rose feels that he is performing a noble divorce. Says he, "In this clip-clap, ragtag life, this is the most heart-warming thing I have ever done."